_History of the Conquest of Peru. With a Preliminary View of the Civilization of the Incas. By William H. Prescott. New York: Harper & Brothers. 2 vols. 8vo._ It would be impossible in the narrow limits of our magazine to do justice to a work of such labor and ability as this. Mr. Prescott has displayed the same qualities of mind, and the same energy of character, in his History of Peru as of Mexico. Nothing relating to the subject in a printed or manuscript form seems to have escaped his diligent researches, and the facts of his narrative are thus placed on a foundation of authorities which cannot be disputed. Men who investigate with such minute care as Mr. Prescott are not generally those who can compose readable histories. They are commonly but compilers of materials for the use of abler writers. But our countryman is an artist as well as antiquary. He spares no labor, it is true, in collecting his materials, and might claim, if he chose, the highest rank among the disciples of Dr. Dryasdust; but such would be but a small object for his ambition. His glory as a historian comes from his power to collect truth from a mass of perhaps conflicting testimony; to perceive character so accurately as to see just that point in the mind of a contemporary chronicler, where his individual bias casts ominous conjecture on his testimony; to imbue his mind with the very spirit of the age he has chosen for his subject; to look at events from the same position occupied by the actors in them, and thus enable the reader to pass beyond actions to motives; and, above all, to represent the period of time he has selected for his theme in the clearest light, giving to persons and events their natural prominence, and avoiding all interference with their just relations. The reader of Mr. Prescott’s histories is almost made for the time a contemporary of Ferdinand, Cortez and Pizarro; a contemporary who sees clearly the passions and bigotries which warp their moral judgments, and while uninfluenced himself by the prejudices which blind them, blends charity with justice in deciding upon their actions. There is a healthiness in Mr. Prescott’s intellect which places all objects in “daylight.” They are not discolored in passing through his mind.